


Think Twice (Before You Touch My Girl)

by charleybradburies



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Arguing, Bickering, Blood and Injury, Canon Disabled Character, Co-workers, Community: 1_million_words, Drabble Sequence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Espionage, F/M, First Kiss, Future Fic, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Love Confessions, Major Character Injury, Married Couple, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Canon Compliant, POV Male Character, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, Undercover, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3496835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least Carter had military training and a firearm. Martinelli…she was just a wild card, a nightmare in a skintight black dress that he found himself wanting to have, night after night after goddamned night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think Twice (Before You Touch My Girl)

**Author's Note:**

> A) Partly because roughly half of this is Jack and Angie arguing and/or bickering, there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of italicized words.
> 
> B) Yes, I did think of the nightmare line because of Taylor Swift. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Ca) I chose the title feeling like I'd heard it in a song at some point.
> 
> Cb) That song is apparently "Think Twice" by Eve 6, which I've now purchased from iTunes because I HELLA liked this song way back when.
> 
> D) Positions and stuff are mentioned, but just in case it's confusing:  
> ~It's (I believe) compliant with Agent Carter S1. (Obviously, not with MCU Canon, considering the formation of SHIELD.)  
> ~This is set a few years after S1. I didn't pick a specific year, but perhaps early fifties.  
> ~The SSR is still the SSR.  
> ~Jack is the Captain, and he primarily works with and relies on Peggy and Daniel.  
> ~Peggy and Daniel are married with children - she hasn't taken his name, and he's not legally taken hers but - especially inside the SSR - they are sometimes referred to as "The Carters".  
> ~Angie works both as an actress and as an operative for the SSR, but is vying for a position as an agent.
> 
> And of course, I encourage you to ask me about anything that seems unclear!
> 
> Thank you for reading! xx

The door to the captain’s office slams shut - so hard that he can hear the wall shake. Its furious rattling comes accompanied by the faint but familiar scent of Miss Dior, and though Jack’s chair’s been turned away from the door to free him from most distractions as he studies Donald Mason’s file, he knows precisely who’s joined him.

_Aw, hell._

“Who the _hell_ do you think you are and just _what_ do you think you’re doing, taking me off this case?”

Jack winces at her virulent anger; he notes where he is in the file and closes it.

“You’re _not_ an agent, Martinelli.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Well, I do,” he shouts, and spins his chair around so that he’s facing her.

“This is dangerous, and I’m not _about_ to send you into the fray.”

“Running in heels is _dangerous,_ yet you’ve never had the gall to pretend to have the authority to stop me from doing _that!”_ Angie remarks, her voice growing somehow even more bitter.

Jack feels his resolve weaken as he notices that her skirt has creeped higher up her legs, due to her hands being aggressively curled around her hips.

“As you damn well know, I _do_ have the authority to take you off any case I damn well please.”

“And as _you_ damn well know, _you’re_ the one who needs _my_ help to do _his_ job in the first place!”

“I might need you, but _Carter_ doesn't, not for her job; and you _aren’t_ going.”

“So, what then? I’m relegated to organizing your files and putting an inane amount of sugar in your coffee, like I’m your damned secretary?”

“I don’t particularly care _what_ you do until this case is over, as long as you don’t put yourself in danger.”

“Oh, well, cowboy, when you say it that way, it almost sounds like you care!” she scoffs - and really, what is he supposed to say to that?

The wall shakes when she slams the door closed a second time, and he sets his chin in his hands and desirously watches her walk away. 

//

“Captain Thompson?” the hotel’s receptionist beckons, and he jogs over to the desk, thanking her as she hands him the telephone. 

“Sousa?” 

“Thompson.”

Daniel’s tone is notably reserved.

“We’ve got what could potentially be considered a Code Yellow situation in here.”

“How the - we cleared everything, we’ve got all the doors guarded, you and Peggy got eyes on the suspect, how did we end up with a situation just since I spoke to you a few minutes ago?”

“Suspect brought a date.”

Jack’s heart skips a few beats.

“Goddammit, Martinelli.”

//

Jack Thompson is not a helpless man, but he sure as Hell feels like one.

A full breach isn’t in the cards, and he’s unpleased with settling for standing back and letting his agents try to diffuse anything that may be happening. Sousa had been able to convince a hotel employee to let him use the telephone booth in the ballroom, but the little information that his third-in-command had been able to give isn’t nearly enough to justify calling anything off. 

Angie may be defying orders, but she’s still on his damned payroll. 

He can’t recall the last time he’d gritted his teeth this hard, but he’d bet his own paycheck that it’d been about either her or Peggy. 

At least Carter had military training and a firearm. Martinelli…she was just a wild card, a nightmare in a skintight black dress that he found himself wanting to have, night after night after goddamned night. 

A nightmare at a gala on an international arms dealer’s arm.

//

When he thinks about it, Jack realizes that Mason’s bodyguards had started trickling out of the ballroom around ten. But he hadn’t thought about it when it was happening: they’d slunk out slowly enough, and in such different directions, that he’d thought barely a thing of it.

Mason’s departure itself is the first clue that he’d even made a plan to ditch. Jack catches the license plate of the ritzy black car by chance, and his heart drops, and by the time he’s decided his best option is to pull the Carters off their cover, Peggy’s run over to him to re-inform him that he’d done a damned terrible job of protecting his people (though she doesn’t use a single one of those words.)

All their covers are done for, even though Peggy’s high heels have incapacitated the two guards left behind to take care of the agents on their boss’s tail, and she, Daniel, and Jack delegate - as many of the steps necessary to complete the mission as can be quantified - before rushing back to the SSR office. 

//

Peggy’s about to slap him, he can tell. He’s been pacing for nearly twenty minutes, and his dress shoes make a clacking noise similar to her heels, which he himself has never been fond of. He has a new appreciation for the sound now: _her_ approaches usually spell some maternal advice or incredible success or witty comment. 

All his own movement is bringing him is swelling uncertainty in reference to everything other than the haunting fragility of life. War had been bad enough - a cozy office in the city wasn’t supposed to feel like the front lines, and this particular office, thankfully, hasn’t held that feeling since Dooley passed. 

Burgeoning actresses, too, were not supposed to raise hell as though they were Soviet spies, but of course, Jack found no such solace from the behavior of the one of whom he’d grown fond. 

When the telephone finally rings, Peggy jumps at it, and he doesn’t bother trying to wrench it from her hands. She could skin him alive with her nails alone, if she set her mind to it; he wasn’t about to give her cause to do it.

She jots something down and hands it to her husband, and knowing that he’s too emotionally charged to properly handle the situation anyway, Jack falls in step behind the pair as they head back to their car. 

//

She’s bloodied and unconscious, and he can barely find the strength to breathe. 

It’s all his fault. He should have been more careful. A good agent, let alone a good _captain,_ can’t let their emotions control their actions. 

She was Peggy’s best friend; Peggy and Daniel both had far more reason to be emotional than he. _He_ shouldn’t be the one hiding in a bathroom stall at the hospital in the middle of the night, trying to keep himself from crying. He had things to do and an arms dealer to find and interrogate and arrest. Or, quite possibly, shoot. The latter sounded tantalizingly preferable at the moment.

The door to the head creaks open. 

“Jack?”

He groans. 

“You are aware that this is the _men’s_ room, right?”

“At a moment like this, that’s not particularly important, is it?” 

Peggy’s voice is soft now, soothing. It’s her damned mother voice, and he wishes that he didn’t feel like he needed it. 

“The doctor assures me she will be all right, Jack.”

“I should’ve put detail on her as soon as you saw her,” he says, trying for an apology, the recipient of which he can’t place.

Peggy’s silent for a moment. 

“Defensive wounds are received while one is maintaining resistance against one’s assailant,” she states, still in a quiet voice. “She fought like hell, Jack.”

“Always does,” he says melancholically, and pushes himself up onto his feet. 

//

Peggy’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, gripping it momentarily before she takes a seat next to him in the chairs in the corner of Angie’s room. 

“The sitter’s matron is demanding her return, Jack,” she begins with a whisper, and he shifts his gaze toward her. “Daniel’s gone to take her back to her apartment, but I have to ask-”

“You have children to take care of, Peggy,” he stops her, praying that his voice sounds even the littlest bit reassuring. She won’t leave him if she thinks he can’t handle himself. 

“Go home to them, get some sleep, and when you and Daniel wake up, go get our bad guy. I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure, Jack?” 

“Yes, _Mother,_ I’m quite sure.”

She rolls her eyes, but he sees that she smiles at the fact that his mood has settled enough for him to be able to joke with her. She ruffles his hair, and he grumbles. 

She really _did_ act like his mother sometimes - he was just glad somebody took a little care of him.

“There will be agents posted all night. Shift will switch at six. If you need us, you know our number.” 

She leaves him with a warm hug and the two quarters she keeps in her purse for emergencies (because he’s sure to need food and somehow, after all the havoc of the night, she remembers that he forgot his wallet on his desk).

//

Angie’s breathing starts to steady around one, and Jack’s follows, after it’s been even for a while. His palms sheen with sweat, held in front of his mouth as his elbows rest on his knees, and the nurse that comes in to check on Angie at two gives him a look full of pity. They’d switched shift at midnight - she hadn’t any idea who he was. 

“She _is_ stable, sir. That’s encouraging,” she says gently once she’s gone about her various tasks, holding her clipboard firm against her hip.

“Is there anything I can do for you? Get a pillow, perhaps?”

“No, no, thank you,” he replies, and when she leaves he makes sure to dry his hands on the legs of his trousers. 

//

The hospital coffee is dreadful, but it keeps him awake well enough. And apparently, after a couple of cups and the nascence of the sunrise, it does the trick for Angie as well.

“That s’posed to be coffee?”

“So I’ve been told,” Jack laughs, leaving the cup he’d been holding on the table at his right and speeding over to the chair at her bedside.

Angie opens her eyes fully, grimacing at the bright light of her clinical quarters. Even with the smattering of lacerations gracing her face, she’s as beautiful as ever, especially once she cracks an inquisitive smile.

“What’s cookin’, Captain Pretty Boy? Other than the coffee, that is.”

“You’re gonna make me gray, Martinelli, you know that?”

“I, for one, think you’re gonna look pretty sharp with some silver.”

“God, I hope so,” he says in a tone meant to be gently teasing of both of them. Angie’s smile widens, but she doesn’t respond, and a few moments after his own reply he realizes he’s not sure which circumstance he’d been referring to.

As he grows uncomfortable, he stands and plods back to the other end of the room. His coffee’s fallen cold, but he finishes it anyway.

“You should’ve at least told me you planned on defying my direct order. At least then we would have had eyes on you from the get-go.”

“And what would’ve been the fun in that?” she says, her voice practically a sneer, and he momentarily regrets mentioning the mission in the first place.

“Where was the fun in _this?”_ he bites back.

“Oh, as long as I didn’t dwell on what he did for a living, it was a gay old time. Before he took the liberty of looking in my purse, that is. You owe me a new badge, by the way. _And_ a new purse!”

“I don’t owe _you_ doodly-squat. You owe _me_ my sanity!”

“Oh, don’t be like that! You’d lost it ‘fore I came along.”

“Maybe so - but it don’t justify giving me a damned heart attack.”

“Thought this undercover beeswax was your _job,_ cowboy.”

Jack lets out a chuckle, born mostly of frustration.

“Exactly!” he yelps. “It’s _my_ job - it’s not _your_ job!”

“It’s _one_ of my jobs, and I’m damn good at it!”

“Damn good doesn’t get people beaten unconscious by arms dealers and left in alleyways, Angie!”

Jack can see that she’d had a retort planned, but instead, her entire countenance sobers.

After a few moments, he throws his arms into the air questioningly, and tears come to her eyes as she struggles to answer.

“You’ve never called me Angie,” she rasps, and he does his best to stifle the shiver that rises through his spine as they meet each other’s eyes and he begins to wonder as to the implications of her declaration.

“You’ve never called me Jack,” he murmurs. 

“Called you a lot o’ things! It’s called being affectionate…Jack.”

“Oh, is that what this is?” he gestures between them.

She forces a laugh.

“I’ve never known exactly _what_ the hell this is,” she says, her voice weaker than he thinks she means it to be.

His heart’s beating faster than he knows how to handle standing straight up, and he nervously runs a hand through his hair. 

“What do you want it to be?” 

His voice is barely audible, and her response even less so.

“Not so fast, cowboy. You first.”

He laughs nervously, then purses and licks his lips, running a tentative hand against his chin as though he’d just finished a morning shave. (It’s stubble this morning, since he’d not gone home. He hasn’t left his apartment with stubble since before the Navy, but it’s oddly comforting - a reminder that he’d had something more important to do than tend to himself.)

He pads back to the chair at her bedside, and sits down. Her forehead creases with a fearful curiosity he’s never seen in her, but still she looks him in the eye. 

She was like Carter that way: she could be so nervous she was on the verge of speechlessness, and still she’d fix you with a mesmerizing stare. It made it hard, both to meet her gaze and to look away, but he doesn’t plan on doing either for long. 

They both glance down at their hands as his comes to clasp hers; her hand is small and warm, and she flips it over to let his fingers entwine themselves with hers. 

It’s hard enough to convince himself to do it in the first place, so when he feels the sharp breath she draws in when he leans toward her, he pauses before his mouth meets hers - just close enough not to know whose hot breath belongs to whom. 

His nervousness fixes him in place, so uncertain of what she means in her response, but Angie has different ideas. 

The hand of hers not clutching his comes to rest gently on his cheek, and she urges him closer. A smile creeps into his lips as he presses them against hers, and then it’s Angie who swings her arm over his shoulder and locks her lips in his.


End file.
